


Slave to the Rhythm

by rayoflight



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Costume Kink, Demonic Possession, F/M, Other, Police Procedural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayoflight/pseuds/rayoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, I've been writing this off and on for a while, but because of the hiatus I've decided to post. In which I write a monster of the week episode, in which lots of porny things ensue. </p><p>So, basically Sleepy Hollow if written by a fan who imagines how it would be if it aired on HBO instead of Fox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sesh_khem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesh_khem/gifts).



The woman’s body lay stiff on the bed, her nude form splayed in a vulgar fashion, her face frozen in ecstasy. Crane averted his eyes politely, as if his countenance now could somehow salvage some of this poor girl’s dignity.

A small number of forensics professionals wandered around the scene, taking photos and collecting evidence. 

The victim was a pretty twenty year old college student with shoulder length ash-blond hair, the brown roots showing nearly an inch of growth. There were no odd markings on her body, nothing that explained her death or gave this case away as supernatural except for some odd characters that had been crudely etched into the headboard.

“ _Your desire nurtures me._ ”  Ichabod intoned as he translated the words.

“It’s Latin.”

“What does it mean?”  Abbie inquired, her brow furrowed.

“Given the deceased’s undignified position and your captain’s summoning of myself to the scene, I would guess that some form of demonic evil is involved.  The only demon of which I am aware that would leave a woman in such a state is an incubus.”

“...Incubus, as in a demon that feeds on sex?”  

When both Irving and Crane looked at her with their eyebrows raised, Abbie rolled her eyes and chuffed.

“Oh come on, neither one of you thought that I would start researching demons, now that our town has become infested with them? I’d rather Crane _not_ be the only person in the room who has some mythical background knowledge.”

“Not mythical.”  Crane said, a sardonic eyebrow raised.  “ -and I never _was_.”

Abbie grinned and looked away.

Irving looked at the both of them and gave a slow jaded blink.  “When you two are done making eyes at each other, I’d like to show you something else...”

Irving eyed a tech hovering at the edge of the scene carrying a clear ziplock bag.  

She stepped forward and handed it to him. He held it aloft in a gloved hand so both Crane and Abbie could see what it contained, -a small black business card which appeared to be blank.  

Crane and Abbie exchanged a look before the tech held up a black-light and waved it over the card.

 ** _heartshaped box_** appeared in plain embossed lowercase lettering along with a time and address.

Irving addressed them both, dryly. “This was found wedged between the bed and the nightstand. It’s a BDSM club.”

“Yet another acronym, why am I not surprised?”  Crane complained.

“-It stands for bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism. It’s a club for people who seek alternative sexual practices... _socially_.”  Abbie added.

“Ah, yes.  Ben Franklin was quite fond of many variances of sexual deviancy.  He and a few other powerful denizens of my time would seek them out at Hellfire Clubs.”

Abbie forced a chuckle in her shock. “The founding fathers had a _sex club_?!”

“-Clubs, _plural_ Lieutenant, and I am quite certain sexual peculiarities have always existed...And yes, that was one of the many functions our local chapter served. The things I witnessed in that place make me wish my memory were selective.”

Crane shuddered.

Abbie scrunched her face, suppressing a smile, and shook her head. “I bet, and what were you doing there?”

“It was the product of my own curiousity and the initating rituals of my time. I was young and new to the circle, so naturally they sought to corrupt me.”

“Naturally.” Abbie teased. “And did they succeed?”

“Miss Mills, I was young but I was not completely naive. I was well-read, after all. I was perhaps shocked by the sights, but I knew of their existence.”

“Benjamin Franklin had a particular pechant for elderly widows-.”

Irving cleared his throat, which sounded suspicously like he was covering a gag and interjected loudly. “I need you two to go scope out the place.”

Abbie’s eyes went wide.  “ _What?_ ”

“--You’re both attractive people, which means you’ll be popular.  Better to have the information come to us willingly.  I’d go myself, but I wouldn’t want to cause a riot.” Irving finished dryly.

“The owner agreed to an informal meeting so you can get a look at the regulars and likely suspects in this.  I didn’t tell him much, just that we need access for an important investigation.  Use the incidentals budget to get some appropriate clothing and get down there, ASAP.”

**  
  
**

* * *

 

 

Abbie sat at a dusty desk in their headquarters—a large basement storage room Crane had broken through a wall and traversed secret underground tunnels to get to—browsing a popular fetish merchant’s website on her laptop.

Crane stooped low over Abbie’s shoulder and peered at the items displayed on the page.

“Many of these instruments were used for drawing pain in my day, for punishing spies...” he gave a side-long glance at Abbie, and carefully measured his next words.

“...and _slaves_.” he added. 

Abbie side-eyed him, but let it go.

“As long as _you_ didn't, we're still cool.  -Anyway, not these versions. People use these with care and control so they can safely get their kink on.”

“I am assuming 'get their kink on' means that they use these curiosities for sexual fulfillment.”

“Yep.  But no one gets hurt ...who doesn’t want to.” Abbie winked.

“I want you to pick something out to wear. But stay within budget.”

Crane’s breath caught as a new page loaded, filled with the elaborate corsetry.

“It seems that much of the fashions of my time are now being used for sexual purposes. Does this mean that my clothes are also of particular interest to the deviants among us?”

Abbie shifted uncomfortably in her chair before glancing up shyly at Crane. “I’m sure some find them  _interesting_.  Everything and everyone fits someone’s kink.”

“And what might yours be, lieutenant?” Crane asked with narrowed eyes and a half smirk.

His eyes were entirely too twinkly, entirely too close to her own—just too too much.

Abbie cleared her throat and arose from her chair.

“That is for me and former lovers’ exclusive knowledge...Um, you browse the site and find something.”

Feeling bold she added.  “I already have something in my wardrobe that’s appropriate for our case.”

The look on Ichabod’s face was priceless. His lips parted, those sculpted cheeks rose and flushed ever so slightly with interest, and something else she recognized all too well.  

She wasn’t the only one who was easy to read.

 _Good._ Abbie thought. _Let him squirm._

During those wild years after Jenny was arrested and before she met Corbin, she had done some burlesque-style stripping with an ex-girlfriend at a bar in New York, to earn some cash.  She still had a few of her old things (Luke had definitely enjoyed them when they dated).  And she knew just what she would put on.

Ichabod called out. “Miss Mills, I have selected my wardrobe! I need the reusable plastic currency!”

“ _Credit card_ ”, Abbie corrected as she fished it from her coin purse and handed it to Crane.

From there he would (hopefully) know what to do. She had walked him through it before and he did catch on to things rather quickly. That eidetic memory, she supposed.

Abbie tried to covertly check out what he had purchased but the website only showed the final pricing page

Whatever he was buying, was just under budget.

“And you selected express delivery??”  she said, reaching over his shoulder to press the back button and maybe get a look at his purchase.

“Yes. Miss Mills.” he replied, deliberately pressing enter before she could reach it.

“It should arrive well-within a fortnight.”

“Okay then.  I’ll come up to Corbin’s cabin on Friday night at eleven to pick you up.”

 

* * *

 

Abbie pressed her lips together and surveyed her reflection.

Her lashes were winged and her eyelids smokey, her lips a shiny dark-red pout. She wore a shiny black patent leather full-corset over a high-collar black latex mini-dress which flared just so, at her thighs.

On her feet, were black patent leather peep-toe spiked heels.

She had pinned her hair up on one side and allowed it to fall in tiered ringlets on the other.

Everything still fit and looked well on her.  

Thank goodness, for police training.

She wagered she might give the poor Crane a heart-attack. _Certainly, no decent lady from his time would go out and about in her undergarments_ , she thought.

She chuckled to herself, took as a deep a breath as she could manage and put on her trenchcoat.

She grabbed her keys and headed out to her car.

* * *

 

Abbie knocked on the cabin door and shifted from foot to foot, waiting— _shivering_ —as the chilly night air fluttered the hem of her coat.

When Crane opened the door not a minute later, she forgot how to breathe.

He looked like a hero from the cover of a romance novel.

He was scrubbed clean and smelling of the castile soap he favored.  His hair hung loosely about his shoulders and he wore a cloud white, lace-up shirt, which was open at the collar. Finishing the look were a fresh pair of black trousers and those leather boots he always wears, cleaned and buffed.

It was just a fresh and clean, lay-about version of what he might have worn in his day—Fabio’s uniform—and yet here he was making her tingle.

“Miss Mills,” he said, eyeing her coat with smug smirk and pretending -badly- to be oblivious to her flustered state.

“You are a vision of loveliness. Shall we depart?” he said, offering her his elbow to hold.

“Sure,” she managed, if a bit breathlessly.

* * *

 

The club was on the edge of town in an area few would suspect.  The place was surrounded by nine-to-five offices; the entrance unmarked.

As they approached, Abbie stopped and looked up at Crane.

“ _Wait._  Stoop a little, so I can reach you.”  

Ichabod frowned in confusion but did as he was told.  

Abbie reached into her coat pocket and removed a long thin silver chain.  She looped it around Ichabod’s neck, tying it in a loose knot and let it trail into her hands.  

“There.” she said liking the way it glistened against his long neck and well-defined clavicle.

Crane huffed, indignantly. “As you perpetually have me tethered in any event, you might as well provide a _physical manifestation_ of the item.”

“I hope you did your research.” Abbie said with an eyeroll and a light-hearted chuckle and removed her coat. She casually folded it over her arm, revealing her full attire with a faux modest sigh.

“I have-.” Ichabod’s face went slack, his eyes becoming dark and hooded as he took her in…

Abigail Mills was wearing fancy ladies' undergarments -over a dress that was like a second skin. The corset was of a style not that far removed from what he had removed from women’s bodies with his own hands, in his time... Though, in this color and material, it was unfamiliar to him.

Ichabod found her beyond enticing. These scant garments were most becoming on her figure.  Her breasts heaved temptingly against her corset. His fingers twitched with the desire to swiftly unlace it and feel their soft weight beneath his hands. Her, soft curves were emphasized by the corset’s cinched waist and the flare on the hem of her odd dress.

Before he could stop himself, his eyes wandered over all parts of her, sealing his further torment right along with those damnable tight trousers and the black brassiere he’d unwittingly seen in her mission to rid herself of the Sandman.

In that moment, he knew that his keen recall was one of the tribulations he was doomed to endure these seven years.

 _Abbie Mills_.

His partner had proven to be impressive in every way. He had not come across her equal, save for Jenny.  As coolly confident and capable as any man he had known with the know-how and knowledge to back it up.

All of this, even without the magnitude of her arresting beauty, would have been enough to stop a man’s tongue in his day, but _with it_...He found himself constantly reminding himself of his marital obligations with more stubborn insistence with each passing day.

His marital obligations. And just what were they now?

Had not Katrina ensured in her way, that he and Abbie would find each other?  Had she not also kept a significant part of herself from him? He would spend the majority of his time with Abbie for at least seven years, because of the actions his wife had taken...because she _loved_ him?

...Or because she needed him to fulfill his destiny?

His old notions and vows of romantic chivalry, of courting a lady, of serving as her keeper and protector loyally for his entire life, regardless of circumstance were being sorely tested in a way he had not foreseen.

For better or worse, Abbie was now his lady in every manner except for the biblical one. ...Well, the _other_ biblical one.  Yet that was proving time and again to be the manner he most desired, despite his attempts to avoid it, and despite his now waning feelings for wife. 

Would she even have him in such a manner?  It was a dangerous thing to contemplate.

He had seen how she kept herself apart from her personal desires, a reflex he knew came in part from her difficult upbringing. These desires, he also knew, she had indulged in, in her _wicked_ youth. She had trusted him with that, had confided in him.

She was unapologetically not a maiden and yet he could not--would not--dare think of her as soiled.  

In this odd future, she could choose her desires as freely as any man would in his day.  This too, he at once admired and found titillating.  A woman in his day could aspire no higher than landing a husband to support her as she birthed the next generation of male heirs.  

But Abbie…

…A woman who would most likely have been an invisible, uneducated, abused laborer in his time --he shuddered to think of the waste-- because of her color and her sex, existed in this strange disorienting future as a true woman, a warrior so far beyond the sheltered ladies of his time.

He so often felt such disorientingly reverent thoughts towards her, he might was well have been committing blasphemy.

He _had_ worshipped his wife, a headstrong redhead with ocean eyes almost as large as Abbie’s amber ones and a spirit just as willful and yet she had been so patient with his ways...

...Like Abbie, -but in one major respect they differed.  

Abbie had never lied to him.

He had thought Katrina an innocent beauty serving God, ensconced within her Quaker community.  But she proved remarkably self-possessed for her day, beholden to no man’s desires, -even his own.

He was a man of responsibility, and he had self-control, but sleeping spell or not, his body had been without a woman for two hundred and fifty years.  He practically vibrated with unspent sexual energy.

Abbie’s current attire was so dissimilar to that which she wore on a daily basis, so _base_ and exposed, he could not form words. The reality was far better than the fantasy. He was quite thankful for the fit of his trousers in that moment, for it had been a quite some time since he’d longed as much for a woman as he did just then.

Abbie could actually hear Crane breathing and she smirked knowingly.

She gently pulled the chain so it was just taut, enjoying his Abbie-induced stupor.

“This way, Crane. Say nothing. _Do_ nothing unless you get my permission first. Got it?”

He nodded dazedly.

“Good.”

She gave the chain a slight yank. He staggered slightly before following behind her like an obedient puppy **.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Witness is gathering intel, checking out our suspects for this "episode".
> 
> It does get a bit kinky, once inside the club but nothing goes on with our lead pair...yet.
> 
> With apologies to those who are actually in the BDSM lifestyle. I hope I didn't mangle it too badly.

An attractive tuxedoed attendant of indeterminate sex opened the door and bid them both follow.  As they walked through the narrow curtained hallway, they could hear a gentle piano piece softly playing on the sound system.  

They were escorted to a large parlor with various comfortable furnishings spread out within. At the far corner there was a small stage.  

About thirty people were scattered about. Small groupings of people were gathered in the corners of the dimly room, chatting and enjoying drinks.

Some looked like this was a 24-hour lifestyle for them with no sign of office-friendly hair or skin visible. Others appeared in all other respects like they could be Abbie’s next-door neighbors.  She imagined they might even have left in-laws back at their homes babysitting their children.

Abbie and Crane stood out among them, in a few ways.  

They were the only interracial couple there and they were, as Irving had predicted, by far the most striking.

As they walked around they noted a hairy man with a stocky build who was sitting atop of a kneeling pig-tailed girl’s back. He was sipping a martini and chatting idly with another fellow. He raised his glass to them.

A middle-aged couple stood in a nearby corner toying with a well-muscled blindfolded man’s nipples. He was strapped to a wall and clearly enjoying those attentions, judging by the sizable erection visible through his leather pants.

Abbie chanced a glance back at Ichabod. He seemed slightly flustered but determined to keep up appearances.  With his hands clasped behind his back and his perfect posture, he made a rather formal-looking sub.

A small audience of people were gathered around the small stage where a young nude woman was spread and completely sandwiched between two layers of suspended latex, but for a small protruding breathing tube for her mouth.

A tall, tattooed, shirtless dark-haired man was attending her, checking her breathing tube, and offering her up for the audience to touch and play with.  All of the air was being vacuumed from between the latex and her skin as she undulated erotically.

Abbie walked away from the stage to a deserted part of the bar with Crane stiffly following behind.

“You want a drink?”  The bartender said, addressing Abbie.

“No.” she replied.  

One had to keep a clear mind when working out in the field.

“It’s basically a live informercial.”  he said nodding towards the stage.

“...The most effective and safest way to sell that thing. Rick always demonstrates the proper way to use his toys so no one gets hurt.”  

The bartender was a tall shirtless leanly-muscled, dimple-cheeked, brown-skinned black man, with a pierced septum and shoulder-length thumb-sized black dreads.  He was absolutely gorgeous.

“Rick. That’s the guy with the tattoos?” Abbie said, when she found her voice.

“Yeah. He owns the place.  He’ll want to meet you. You’ve never been here before and you’re the most beautiful person in the room, if you don’t mind me saying.”  He said, flashing a perfect white smile.  “I’m Jay.”

“Abbie.”

She felt Ichabod stiffen behind her...being entirely too alpha for his role, so she yanked his chain and gave him a withering look.

He frowned at her for a split second before dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Your sub could use more training.  I’d be happy to attend to him, if you’d like.”

Abbie gave him her most charming smile.

“No thank you. I’m afraid he only listens to his mistress.” and she got up from the stool and gently took up the slack in the chain.

“Come,  _boy_.”  

Ichabod’s nostrils flared, half-offended and he was ashamed to realize, more than a little bit turned on.

**  
  
**

* * *

 

Abbie lead Crane to a deserted corner.

“What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking that your _bar_ keep seemed rather suspiciously forward.”

Abbie chuffed. “Remember where and when we are, Crane.”

“Right. -I also think that we ought to speak to this Rick fellow.  The tattooed inscription on his chest is the very same phrase that was on the murdered girl’s headboard.”

“Yeah. I noticed that too.  But don’t you think carving that into the headboard at the scene of the crime, if you have a tattoo of the same phrase, is pretty much _asking_ to be implicated in said crime? I don't think he's our unsub, but I'm sure he knows the person who is.”

“This man just offered up a girl as if she were a slab of meat, his mind may work differently from that of sane men...And I'm not even going to ask what that particular acronym means.”

Abbie pursed her lips and crossed her arms.  “She’s doing nothing she does not wish to do.  There’s nothing wrong with a person who’s of age participating in safely implemented activities that harm no one else. Get with the 21st century, Crane... And unsub --It's an FBI thing. It means, 'unknown subject'. You can't learn these things if you don't ask.”

Ichabod, sputtered slightly. “Of course. I cast no aspirations on your morality, Miss Mills.”

Abbie sighed.  “Come on. Let’s go meet Rick.”

* * *

 

Rick had already left the stage and the girl to one of his subordinates. He was swiftly heading their way. Aside from themselves, and the luscious bartender, he definitely was the most attractive person in the room. 

He was not traditionally handsome, but styled in a particular way and carrying himself with confidence sent out that energy.

The gray at his temples and the crinkle of his eyes made Abbie guess that he was in his forties.

“I'm happy to see newbies. I’m Rick,” he said, eyeing them both, “I own the place. I hope you're enjoying your time here.”

He took Abbie’s hand and kissed the back of it. Ichabod stilled, watching from under heavy disapproving eyes.

“Follow me, please.”

They did and were lead by Rick into a private back room.

Once back there, he wasted no time. “Your captain was less than forthcoming. As much as I'm glad you've come, wearing _that_ , I’m hoping you can tell me why two cops are in my club...-I run a perfectly reputable establishment.-”

 _“One_ cop.”  Abbie corrected.

“He’s my associate,” she said, nodding back at Crane.

Rick sighed and sat down heavily in a plush black leather chair.

“In any case, what’s up?”

“One of your regulars turned up dead last week.  We found your club’s calling card in her possession. Given the nature of her death we suspect that the killer might be one of your patrons.”

Abbie, ever practical and unflappable, sucked in her breath and pulled a small photo from her corset.

“Do you know her?”

His face dropped. “Sarah Yade. Yeah, she was one of my part-time subs.  She was due in my home this weekend.”  

Judging from his startled and grief-ridden expression, Abbie’s gut told her this wasn’t the killer.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

Abbie ignored this.  “Did you notice any patrons taking any special interest in her?”

“We _all_ take interest in one another….”

The chain in Abbie’s hand danced for a moment and Abbie looked back at Crane, who was sitting stiffly, but obediently silent. “Might I interject, uhm _Mis_ -, -Lieutenant?”

Abbie nodded, barely suppressing an amused smile

“Your tattoos sir, where did you attain them?” Crane inquired.

“A little hole-in-the wall place on the corner of North Alma and Long, uptown.”

Crane met Abbie’s eyes and she looked back to Rick.

“Would you give us a minute?” she asked.

Rick nodded and left the room.

“I believe his tattoos are incantations.”  Crane said. “Summoning spells...They are what called the demon.”

“Then I think we need to pay that tattoo parlor a visit.”

* * *

 

Abbie thanked Rick, gave him her card in case he remembered anything else, and swiftly left the club, much to Ichabod’s relief.  

As they exited, they witnessed a restrained middle-aged woman being brought to orgasm by an eager gathering of folks taking turns holding a vibrator.

Ichabod shook his head and sighed heavily, whispering - _your future is full of perversion_ \- as Abbie lead him out.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These next chapters set-up the final act.

That night Abbie lay in her bed on the very edge of sleep when her phone buzzed.

 _“Figures.”_ she grumbled.

“As soon as I get settled in.”

“Yes?” she answered groggily.

 _“Sorry, for the late call, I had some other errands to run today, so I couldn't call before now, but I_ did _read your report. -The owner kept her as his sub?”_

“Yes, but I don’t think he’s the killer. -At least not willingly.  Crane and I both think the perp is at the tattoo parlor where he got the ink done.”

“-I’m sure you'd already planned a field-trip up there, tomorrow.”

“Sir, I also wanted to take Jenny along.-”

“- _Way_ ahead of you. She’s proven to be quite the expert when it comes to the local _dark_ underground. Until then, sleep well tonight.  I know I don’t have to tell you to _be careful_.”

Irving hung up and Abbie rolled over, slowly getting comfortable enough to fall into a thoughtful sleep.

 

* * *

When they got to the place, a little bit after it was scheduled to open, it appeared to be abandoned. Not for long either.  It was as if the owners just grabbed what they could and left town in a hurry, -they even took the neon sign.

“I hadn’t heard anything about this place when I was active, so any dark dealings here must be a recent.” Jenny said.

“I’ll check to see if the backdoor is open.” she continued, clearly indicating that she would break in.  Her game-face on, she jogged down the alley, with Crane and Abbie following behind her, watching her back.

Abbie looked up at Crane, “Well, now we know with almost certainty that these people are involved.”

“The timing of their permenant shuttering _is_ rather suspicious.” Crane intoned dryly.

Jenny picked the lock in record time and couldn’t help but smirk at Abbie, while Ichabod rolled his eyes affectionately at them both, as they followed her into the interior.

They checked room after room and found nothing but the usual examination tables, cliche tattoo designs decorating the walls... Until they came upon what appeared to be a large demonic symbol burned into the floor of one of back rooms.

Ichabod knelt down and was reaching to touch it, when Jenny grabbed his hand.

“ _DON’T!_  This symbol wasn’t drawn by some human Satan-worshipper or Hessian. This was burned in... _from below.”_

Both Abbie and Crane exchanged a dark look when they realized she was right, the scrawl was burned in but did not reach the surface of the hard laminate.

“It’s cursed. I’ve seen what happens when people touch a symbol made like that.” Jenny said, frowning. “It’s not pretty. A demon was definitely summoned here.”

Abbie’s smartphone abruptly buzzed. Crane jumped about ten feet.   Jenny and Abbie both smirked at him.

“It doesn’t sound _natural_.”  Crane said, defensively.

Abbie slid her finger across the frontscreen and answered.

“-Yeah.”

“It’s Irving. There’s a new victim.”

* * *

 

This scene was very different from the first one.  This time, it was a young man in a hot tub. His eyes were shut and a wide grin was plastered on his face. His hands were propped behind his head.

It was clear what kind of attentions he had been receiving when he died.

“The victim’s name is Kevin Satler. He’s a high school senior at Sleepy Hollow High.  An even _younger_ kid.” Irving said disgustedly.

“You two got any new leads?”

“Sir, we visited the tattoo parlor.  Unfortunately, it had been abandoned shortly before we got there. There were no useful clues at the scene.” she said loudly and then cautiously lead Irving out of earshot of the other officials on the scene.

 _“There was a symbol burned into the floor.  A demon was summoned there.”_ she said to him, quietly.

Irving pressed the bridge of his nose between two fingers and sighed heavily. He was exasperated, terrified, and frustrated by how closely the department was now watching him. He couldn't help them like he wanted.

“Look, I have faith in both of your abilities.  You haven’t let me down yet. Just, _-do_ what you need to do to get this guy.”

“ _Demon_.”  Crane corrected.

“Whatever. Just stop it!”  Irving walked away, with heavy eyes and shoulders.

**  
  
**

* * *

 

Abbie got into her car and slammed the door behind her.

Crane slid in next to her.  

“There was nothing in any of Corbin’s notes about this. We’re flying blind.”

“Perhaps, we could find the answers on your _inner_ net,”

Looked up at him as if he’d grown two heads. “In- _ter_ -net. And that’s actually a good idea. -One I was _already_ on my to do...”


	4. Chapter 4

Back at their headquarters, Abbie stared at a Google Maps photo of the parlor.

Some quick google-fu led to the owners’ names and photo examples of their work.

“Wait.  Is there any way to determine the name of the artist who created that particular piece?” Ichabod said from behind, physically poking the screen over her shoulder.

“Maybe...” she said as she scrolled down the page.

“‘...In my day, none but pirates, criminals, and ner’-do-wells carried such markings on their skin.”

“Well, _nowadays_ , all manner of folks have them. -Myself included.”

“ _You?_ But I see no evidence of a tattoo on your person.” Ichabod said, eyeing the exposed skin of her arms, and briefly -her chest.

Abbie sighed and simply looked up at him until he got the message.

“Of course, that would mean that you’ve been tattooed _beneath_ your clothing.” Ichabod said.

“Yeah.  A hummingbird on my hip and If you ask nicely, I may even show it to you sometime.”

Ichabod blinked rapidly and cleared his throat before refocusing on the screen. The inked skin on display on the page was familiar, in a way, few would notice.  Crane among them.

“Stop moving the pictures.   _-There_.  That is the very artist who inked Rick’s spells.”

Abbie frowned.  “Are you certain? -I don’t see how you could know.-”

“The flourishes are the same.”

When Abbie kept giving him a skeptical look he added.  “I’d bet my life on it.”

“Eidetic memory.” he added, tapping his forehead for emphasis and added. “I must say, this is one of the very few bits of your future that is an _actual advance_ , in my view.  It makes perfect sense that your generation would rely so much on information stored on your invisible wires.”

Abbie, as usual refrained from doing much more than shaking her head at Crane’s rant about her generation’s tools.  Really, it was all he could do given how he got here.   At least this time, it was framed as a compliment, - _sort of_.

“Well. It says the name is Sandy Cramer. -Let’s go meet the artist.” she replied.

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later they were knocking on the door of a ramshackle country house, the address of the artist.

A sickly-looking pale blue-haired girl about the same height as Abbie cracked the door, sniffing.

“Yes?”

“ _Sandy Cramer?_ -Abigail Mills, I’m a police officer.”  

She flashed her badge.

“Open up, we need to talk.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“We have the bodies of two people connected to you, down at the morgue. -We just have a few questions, that’s all.” she added.

The girl coughed and sniffed and eyed them both for a few tense moments before visibly relaxing.

“Come in.”

She simply opened the door a little-ways and walked away from it expecting them to follow.

Abbie put her badge away, undid her holster buckle, and placed a casual hand on her gun handle.

She looked back at Crane, wordlessly communicating that she wanted him to stay alert and then she entered the house.

The girl was seated in the middle of a grungy looking couch, staring at them. Abbie spotted an old wooden fold-out chair and sat down, while Crane remained standing.

“You tattoed a man by the name of Richard Meeds, he’s-”

“-I know who he is,” she interrupted. “It was not something that could be helped.”

She sniffed. “I had no choice…”

Crane touched Abbie’s shoulder...“ _Lieutenant._ ”  

She saw it, the bruising and signs of rot, the veins standing out on her arms, the dullness of her eyes. This girl was like Andy, dead and bound in service to something evil.

“I wasn’t ready. But he told me to make the markings… Rick had liked my other designs, so he trusted me and I made a welcome mat, for It to come into the world.”

A low creak came from the back of the trailer, the unmistakable sound of a foot on floorboards.

Abbie drew her weapon and stood up.

“Someone else is here. Who is it Sandy?”

The girl merely sat there, blinking at her.

“ _\--POLICE!!_ COME OUT SLOWLY, WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED!!”

“You already met him.” Sandy said, “He told me all about you. So vibrant and alive…   _He can’t wait_ to take you.”

A figure showed itself, speaking in a voice that was not of this Earth. It crackled and rumbled like the thunder of a fading storm.  It spoke to Abbie.

It was the bartender from the club.  There was something wrong with his eyes. They seemed to bulge from the immense pressure of _something_ beneath them.

“... _Jay_?”

Ichabod spoke quietly. “This man is possessed.”

“Well he’s not going to possess me.” and she fired, aiming to give him a flesh wound in his limbs to take him down.  That she did, but it didn’t matter, quick as lightning he arose from the floor, uncaring of the bullet wound in his calf and he came at her.

“ _LIEUTENANT!!!_ ”  Ichabod leapt on him, wrestling him away.

The man hissed at Ichabod making him wince at his foul breath. He gripped Ichabod’s throat and squeezed.  Ichabod flailed and gripped his wrists, uselessly. Without a moment's hesitation, Abbie pointed the gun at the side of his temple and pulled the trigger.

His head bounced away spraying brain matter and bits of skull all over the room. Then he turned to Abbie, with half of his head gone.

His eyes were bloodshot, one of them now rolled up wrongly,  -his mouth full of gore.

“ _The Witness…_ ” it said, as thick black blood dribbled down his chin.

He then did something unexpected. Instead of reaching for Abbie, he leaned forward, with his mouth stretched wide and pressed his face as closely as he could to Ichabod’s face.

Abbie desperately locked both arms, putting him in a sleeper hold, while Ichabod pushed up from below with both hands with all of his might.

Sandy, eerily remained where she was on couch laughing maniacally like a Disney villain.

Abbie watched something slick and black, but with the substance of smoke pour out of him and onto Ichabod.

“NO! -NOOOO!!!! _GET OFF HIM!!!_ ” she shrieked desperately.

The door bounced in.

There was a high-pitched whine, like the sound you hear in your ears after a loud concert and Abbie looked up and saw Jenny standing in the room, holding an ancient gilded cross with two hands.

It glowed.

The smoke writhed and twisted like a giant black maggot on rotting meat and rolled off Crane’s chest.

Jenny ran forward then and brought the heavy cross down on the thing, crushing it, with a sickening pop.

Ichabod lay motionless and covered in what looked like soot and slime.

Abbie heaved the lifeless body off of him and dropped down next to him…

She shook him.  “Crane. -CRANE!! _WAKE-UP!!_ ”

He was completely unresponsive, and worse his eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling.

She put her head on his chest and listened for a heartbeat.  Shaking like a leaf, she tipped his head back and pressed two fingers to his sternum and then placed her hands above that.

She began compressions.  “Come on Crane.  Come on!”

She worked steadily for several long minutes.

“Ichabod….please…

 

**COME.**

 

_**ON!** ”_

Ichabod coughed and gasped, and Abbie clutched his broken body in relief, oblivious to the nastiness on him.

“You said you wouldn’t do this again.” Abbie said, her voice catching on the words.

“--Not _purposely_.” he corrected, horsely.

 

* * *

 

 

The sound of sirens filled the air and Abbie glanced up at Jenny who stood next to Sandy, with a gun pointed at her in one hand and the muck-covered cross in the other.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, Jenny went back to Abbie’s home alone.  

Abbie was getting more attached to Crane than she would ever admit to anyone, - _least of all_ herself. She had decided to stay at the hospital, keeping him company until visiting hours were over.

Jenny didn’t get it. He wasn’t dying. He only had a few cracked ribs and some deep bruising on his neck. They were only keeping him to be safe and the man was _married_ for fucks-sakes.

He was cute, sure. But he could also be incredibly selfish to the detriment of all those working with him.

Jenny shook her head and cracked her own neck.

For some reason, instead of going directly to the shower like she’d planned to do, she walked over to a stack of Corbin’s files on Abbie’s tiny dining room table.

She sat down in a chair and just thumbed through what was there.

She wasn’t looking for anything exactly, but…

In a stack of old yellowing photocopied headlines, - _one_ stood out.  

Above a tiny clipped article, dated Wednesday, November 12th, 1818, there was an etching of a half-naked woman, torn to pieces...Next to her, stood a man in shackles, covered in something blackish.

She read the article, nearly retching as she did, immediately grabbed her gun, and quickly left.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narrowly avoiding disaster, Abbie finds out how to defeat the Incubus.

At the hospital Abbie dozed in Ichabod’s room in a non-descript plastic recliner.  A nurse had thrown a thin white blanket over her body.

Ichabod awoke, noted the bandages on his chest and his difficulty breathing and realized that he had fractured ribs. Other than that, he felt... _oddly_ , better than he had since he’d woken up in his time before the war.

He felt energized and hungry...starving actually.   But the hunger wasn’t for food, it was deeper kind of hunger...a kind of lust, -a compulsion for the pain of another… The complete and utter possession and destruction of the mind, body, and soul of the person closest to himself.

_\--Abbie._

_No._

_Something’s wrong._

He tried to say it aloud, but it came out as a whisper.

_“-something’s wrong.”_

Abbie stirred.  

_No, she’s in the room with me...No! She must leave!_

Abbie yawned so hugely she vocally sighed and then she blinked over in his direction, noticing he was moving and she slowly smiled.

_Take her. Take her. ---No you will not make me!_

“Crane.  You’re awake.”  She frowned at him. He seemed to be in pain…

She got up and walked around to the head of his bed.   

_Yesss, yess.  Come closer Witnesses…. NO! GET AWAY FROM ME, ABBIE! I’ll hurt you...please…_

“Crane. You alright? ...I’ll call the nurse for you.”

As she reached for the call device, Ichabod’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist, stopping her.

His mouth worked and words came out but they were not his own.

“I'm just exhausted.” he managed with a slow smile. “Though, I’ll admit I am quite sore in my chest. I suspect I have a broken rib or two, but I’ll live.”

“My fault.”  Abbie said, her eyes shining slightly from some emotion.  “I’m just glad you’re still here with me. You almost left again.”

“Then I should thank you, for saving my life, yet again.”

He took hold of her hand and slowly brought it to his face.  Abbie frowned in confusion. This was a bit intimate for Ichabod.   He kissed the back of her hand and rubbed against his bearded jawline.  In that brief touch, she had a vision.

_crane kissing the spot between her neck and shoulder, his hands spanning her waist...removing her clothing, slowly...touching, -kissing every newly exposed bit of skin...making love to her moaning her name - a towering male figure looming over her, his face in shadow,  grinning... gripping her throat with both hands and lifting her from her feet... licking and nuzzling the side of her face…whispering Abigail…_

She yanked her hand back and staggered away from the bed.

“Abbie?” the thing wearing Crane’s body like a suit said.

“-Where’s Crane?” she replied, her voice betraying the magnitude of her fear on the last word with the barest tremor.

It sat up fully in the bed and intoned in Crane’s voice, the cadence and lack of emotion just - _wrong_ coming from his lips.

“Still here, -willing me not to do what I have been tasked to, Witness.  Defile you, body and soul. This I do for my own amusement, as well. Render you apart.  I would do this for my own pleasure regardless of task.”

It looks her over then, the thing behind Crane’s eyes, and licks it’s lips.  

“The favored pets, creatures of sublime purity are my preference.  Souls full of joy, optimism...”  

It chuffed then and swung it’s legs out over the edge of the bed, bracing his hands on the corners to rise.

“But _you…_ You are none of these things and yet-- You radiate a purity of purpose for which I have not encountered an equal.  Not even in the other Witness. I should enjoy taking you.”

Abbie drew her gun and aimed it at Crane’s face.

The thing smiled. 

“You would not. He’s still here.” it said, tapping his bandaged chest.

“He would rather me kill him than allow you to use his body for what you intend.”

“Yes, he does.”  the thing wearing Crane’s body stepped forward and gently raised one delicately arched hand and caressed the gun like a lover, caressed the hand holding it and pressed the muzzle to his chest, where his heart beat.

“Fulfill his wishes, Abbie.”  

Without hesitation she pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked.  

She had time to register the shock on the thing’s face before the glow and the high-pitched whine began once again, as Jenny stood in the doorway, clearly winded, with the cross raised.

She walked forward and pressed it to it’s chest chanting in some ancient tongue, while the demon collapsed under the weight of it, his eyes now wide and alight with some of Crane’s awareness behind them, a single pained tear rolling down his face, before his eyes fell closed and he lost consciousness.

“Here” Jenny said, her hand keeping the cross pressed in place, while the other handed off some heavy rope to Abbie.  “Tie it to him.”

Both women hauled Crane into a wheelchair, careless of the thin hospital gown he wore, and threw some blankets over his body.

“How did you…?”  

“Corbin’s files.  When I got home, I uh, realized that I missed some important bits.”

 

* * *

 

 **  
**Crane was now chained in the same spot they had held the Horsman, still unconscious with the cross still bound to his chest. **  
**

Both sisters stared at him from the viewing room, behind the glass.

“I know how to kill that thing and it get it out of him, without it taking him with it, but...”

“-But what Jenny?  Just spit it out!”

Jenny took a deep breath.  

“That demon is called Lilu. He’s ancient and very powerful.  He’s not a lower-level incubus that can be destroyed by mere incantations and trinkets. Even that gilded cross is only suppressing his power, holding him captive.  

Abbie. You understand how it functions, right?  It violates, it twists what has been gifted to humanity as a tool of pleasure and creation into a tool of utter destruction.

So....  The only way you can kill that thing is by using it’s weapon against it.”

“You mean... _sex_.”

Jenny shook her head.

“No, not just sex… The opposite of what it uses sex for.  Abbie. Do you _love_ Crane?”

“Of course I do, he’s my best friend and he’s-”

“No, Abbie.  I mean...   _Do you love him, romantically?_ ”  

Abbie merely frowned.  

Jenny chuckled harshly.  “I knew it.  It all makes sense.  It’s a big part of the reason why you two specifically are Witnesses.”

“What do you mean?”

“Abbie, I’ve been studying this shit for a long time, okay?  God is many different things to many to different people, but the common thread is Creation.  The Apocalypse is the opposite of that.  It undoes humanity by destroying us. The key to that destruction is undoing the best of us, our connection to one another and the power in that, -the love.

You two have to have love between you in order to win this thing, not just that of friendship or family, but the deepest kind, that of agape.  ...Not the appropriated Christian definition, but older than that.  That of a lover or spouse.  Abbie, he’s your soulmate.”

Abbie looked away, looking furious at having had this voiced aloud to her. She’d been successfully avoiding it for so long.  She turned her back to Jenny and held her hands up in denial.

She shook her head. “I _can't_ -he’s not free… He has a wife for fucksakes!”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Like that matters.  Honestly, I don’t know that she was even supposed to do that.”

“What do you mean?...”

“ _I mean_ , his wife is a witch who was tasked to help one of the Two Witnesses to fulfill his destiny, right?  She’s immortal, which means presumably she knows more about this shit than I do, since she’s had the time and she knows the about base powers supporting our existence, has to in order to even _be_ a witch.  She had to have known what he was destined for, including your connection... I don’t know if she did it because she wanted him for herself or for something far more malevolent, but I do know, it wasn’t supposed to happen.  If she truly loved him, she would not have allowed it to happen.  It weakens him...It makes his task harder, not easier.

Abbie, _he’s supposed to be with you_.”

Abbie rubbed her head as if experiencing the beginnings of a headache.  “He doesn’t feel that way about me.”

Jenny actually laughed, grabbing her sister’s shoulders so she could meet her eyes. “Are you _kidding_ me?! God! What is it with you blind idiots?!  Why the fuck do you think he tries so hard to rescue his technically dead marriage, even to the detriment of the fucking mission?-”

“-I don’t know Jenny, because he loves her, like husbands do their wives?”

“Because he’s trying to shake off what he feels for you!!  He thinks it’s wrong and feels guilty.  So, he’s actively trying to get back to what he knew was right in order to avoid doing the kind of wrong he wants to do with you.”

“Come on, Jenny. You don’t believe that.”

“You’ve never noticed the way he looks at you when you aren’t paying attention...how he was when you almost died that time.  Trust me.  He loves you, _very much_. So much, that it scares the shit out of him.”

Abbie sighed and rolled her eyes up at the top of the stone chamber.  “Sooo, ...say all that you’re saying is true.  What are you proposing that we do about it.”

“An ancient ritual that I learned from one of the Amazonian tribes who sheltered me for a time, -that they showed me.”  Her eyes grew far away… “They were the very best of humanity.  -They’re gone now, scattered from their land to who knows where, right along with all that they knew...no wonder the Apocalypse is upon us.”

Jenny picked up a scrap of paper.

“I have to put this mark on your skin, --the both of you, binding your spirits.” she said, holding up a crude drawing of what looked a pitchfork with cross.   

“...Then you have to make love to him.   His feelings for you will keep him tethered to this plane, -to your soul, while the incubus is destroyed by the ritual, by what you do together.”

Abbie blinked up at her sister skeptically.

“Destroyed. By  _sex_.”

“- _Destroyed_ by the Two Witnesses’ love.”

Abbie pressed the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

“...and you are _certain_ that this will work.”

“Abbie.  I know it will.  I’ve seen it done before on as powerful a demon as this one is.  One more thing…  This mark I’m making on the both of you.  It will be permanent.”

“So, it’s a tattoo.”

“No.  It’s a flesh-spell.  Uh,  how do I say this?...  I’m binding your souls together, deepening your connection.  Your feelings for one another.  It’s… beyond any kind of formal connection human beings can make that I’ve encountered.  Beyond it’s closest comparable ritual, marriage.  It’s permanent and unbreakable. It will make you stronger together, but also much more vulnerable to one another.  I’ll try to reach Crane and get some consent from him for this, but if I can’t?...I’m doing it anyway.”

“What, so you’re not going to ask me if I’m doing this?”

Jenny merely blinked, pursed her lips, shifted her weight onto one foot, and crossed her arms over her chest with one perfect eyebrow raised.

“Touché.  Okay.  So, you assumed right.  No need to rub it in.”

"Fine. Then let's get to it. We haven't much time."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been a good while hasn't it? I had some downtime and the creative bug bit so I decided to get this thing finished. Sadly, I haven't been very inspired by the new season. I just don't know what the writers were thinking. Since I started writing this well before the new season got started, I decided to try to make it a mix of show and fic canon. Katrina's status is left somewhat ambiguous. So, you dear reader can fill in the blanks.  
> As for our lead pair, we stop the tease and finally get to some smutty action in the last two chapters.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this is part one of the smutty end. There is breathplay and dubcon in this chapter right along with some angsty sex.

Jenny carefully walked across the chamber where Ichabod was chained with a wooden bowl filled with some unidentified liquid in her hands.  She knelt before his sweating, shivering, unconscious form and sipped what was in the bowl.  Then she spit it into Crane’s face.

His eyes opened slowly.

_“Miss Jenny?”_

“We don’t have much time before that demon awakens again.  I need your consent to save you the only way that we can.  My sister has already agreed to help you...”

Abbie watched this conversation from the viewing room. She watched Crane’s face closely, watched the micro-expressions as he reacted to the idea of binding his soul to her, of having some sort of a sex ritual in order to save him.  

Shock, fear, and then something else she, --who would have been an FBI profiler-- couldn't read.  He glanced up at the glass where she was watching from for one brief moment, meeting her eyes and then nodded.  

That look she understood, _resolve_. Whatever it takes, no matter how much it would throw his plans to get back his wife into turmoil.  Couldn’t get back to her if he were dead, after-all.

Abbie turned away and let out a harsh chuckle.  Perhaps it was some form of karma.  She who had abandoned all that she’d loved in order to protect herself was now stuck serving the world with a man would abandon her at the drop of a hat for his love.

Yeah.  

She deserved this.  Part of the ‘seven years of tribulations’, _surely_.

* * *

Jenny took a syringe from her vest pocket and stabbed Ichabod in his shoulder. His eyes rolled up in his head, and he was out. Big Ash and a stocky silver-haired brown woman Abbie had never seen before stepped forward and knelt down beside his unconscious form.

The woman chewed something thoroughly and then put it in Crane’s mouth, under his tongue. Several other men, indigenous as well, she assumed, unchained Crane’s body and carried him out.

Jenny stepped into the viewing room.

“Okay, he’s gonna do it. Some of my local contacts have agreed to help.  You’ve already met Seamus, right?  He said he met you, both already.”

Abbie nodded.

“Well, he’s providing the venue.  We’ll do it after midnight when that thing is at it’s most present. Between now and then, Safee will make the mark.” Jenny said, indicating the female stranger.

“She’s much better at making them than I am and it requires a deft hand.  Any wrong sweep or flourish and it won’t work.  I didn’t want to chance it.”

* * *

Freshly sweated out from the women’s lodge and bathed with some kind of herbal soap the woman insisted that she use, Abbie lay on her back in Seamus’ lodge, --which she was now associating with spiritual torture--, in nothing but her robe while Safee, the plump, silver-haired brown woman she had just made acquaintance with, made the mark just below and to the left of her belly. It was smaller than she’d thought it would be but hurt a lot more.  Just under the size of her closed fist.  She did it by repeatedly, rapidly poking, -stabbing her with a sharpened bone full of god-knows-what, with careful precision.

It bled freely and the older woman kept having to mop the blood up as it beaded on her skin.

“Well, at least it will look pretty on you, in the end.”  the woman mumbled while she worked.

“What?”

“Often these old symbols are ugly, but this one isn’t.  You should be thankful.  Your man in there should probably enjoy kissing on it when it properly heals.”

“He’s not.-”  Abbie began to reply, but she stopped mid-sentence and sighed.

The woman merely raised both eyebrows and blinked in a way that clearly said, ‘ _oh really_?’

Jenny had explained that this woman wasn’t always in town, and that it was fortunate that she was for this.  Dr. Safee Birdsong with her multiple degrees in Native American studies and her extensive knowledge in indigenous cultures around the world, -from languages thought by many to be dead and gone, to ancient rituals and customs, was a treasure-trove of rare cultural knowledge.

Her life’s mission was to record everything, to keep something of these peoples alive despite the efficient destruction of the white man’s greed and assimilation.

The woman seemed to be something of an oddball.  Her frizzy white hair, which extended a bit beyond her shoulders, billowed out freely, like a dandelion gone to seed.  Her outfit was frumpy and colorful, a long multi-colored sweater over an equally colorful broomstick skirt, under which her well-worn boots barely peaked out.  Her narrow, hooded eyes, constantly sparkled with amusement and mischief.

“He’s a little pale and skinny for me, and he _is_ a white man.  One of the ones who inadvertently started this mess, no less, but he’s got a nice face...and pretty hair.”

Abbie’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh, am I the first person who's been able to tell how old he is?”  The women shook her head.  

“People need to pay more attention. It’s obvious, if you look.  That annoying entitlement is a marker of white men. The kind of elegance and so-called ‘breeding’, especially that deference to those of the fairer sex? -is a marker of particular white men from his time.”

Abbie tensed when the woman moved her crude implement along a particularly sensitive spot.

“He flinched a lot more than you are when I did this, despite being drugged.  Like most men, he needs a woman’s strength.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Still sleeping.  We’ve tied him up.  We're keeping him mostly sedated, until you two kill that thing by fucking.”

“So,  I’m supposed to-”

“-Bump uglies with him while he’s tied up?  Mmm-hmm.  Kinky, eh?”  

She flashed her eyes a bit, elbowed Abbie, and winked.  “I’m sure he won’t mind.  He’s seems the type that likes being dominated by a woman. Besides, it’s just a precaution. If you don’t think he needs it, -if you see that you can handle him, you can untie him.”

“There. It’s done.”  She dipped her gloved hand into a jar of some kind of purple translucent medicinal goo and slathered a thin layer over the finished mark.

“The swelling is already going down. You can look.”

Abbie sat up a little and looked at it.  Apparently the goo had some kind of numbing agent in it, because she could barely feel it anymore.

It was the same simple pitchfork with a cross, but with some beautiful calligraphic flourishes, in a red so dark it was almost black. She also managed to give the mark the appearance of substance and depth, as if she could almost pluck the thing from her skin.

It _was_  oddly pretty.  Not at like the crude ugly protective symbol Jenny initially showed her, but an exotic mark that complimented the angle on her skin.

“That stuff’ll dry to become a liquid bandage.  Should stay on nicely if you’re gentle when cleaning until it’s ready to start peeling off, -in about a week.  By then it should be healed enough that you should be over the hurdle of watching for infection.”

“Drink this.”  Safee gave her a mason jar wrapped in a towel, full of some brown liquid with what looked like dead leaves on the bottom.  Steamed billowed up from it, but at least it smelled pleasant.

“What is it?”

“Ah, something safer and cleaner than viagra, okay? I was gonna give some to the white man too, but he won’t need it, not with that thing inside him and what he feels for you.   _You_ on the other hand, even after the sweating and bathing, have some hard little stubborn nugget of something in your spirit that you refuse to let go.  What might that be? --Ehh, tell me while you drink.”

Abbie shook her head and stared at the woman, taking the smallest sip she could muster.

“Ehh-ehh, drink at least half…and then tell me.”

Abbie had to admit it didn’t taste bad.  Like sweetened chamomile, actually.

“His loyalties are divided, while mine have stupidly been steadfast.”

“Committed to a man less than worthy, huh? Told me the same thing about himself.  Well, at least he’s aware of it and seems to be ready to work on that.  That’s something.”

Safee took out her smartphone and frowned, while Abbie took that bit of information in.

“Hmm, it’s almost time.  You should follow me.”

**  
  
**

* * *

 

Seamus stood by the door and raised an eyebrow.

“Can’t seem to shake the spirits, can you?” he dryly intoned.  “...and always with the sexy laying together with you two. You should have told me that you were Witnesses, I could have given you some protective medicine that would have helped you avoid this.”

“Oh hush!  They can’t always avoid these things. Especially when they need the experience in order to win this war.”  Safee replied, with that hint of mischief in her voice. “If this hadn’t happened, I’m sure it would have been another two years before they finally hooked up.”

Jenny stepped away from Big Ash and held her sister’s hand.

“When you’re ready, you can go in.   If anything goes wrong, simply press the button on the left side of the bed and we’ll be in there in a flash.  I will have to peek in on you from time-to-time, regardless…So, sorry, no true privacy in this. We can’t afford the risk.”

“Just what I need, my sister watching me do the dirty with some dude.”

Jenny hand-waved it away.  “It’s okay, really.  Quite a few of the tribes I stayed with are a lot more open with the sex-thing than we so-called civilized folks are, who are much more comfortable with our violence.  I’m used to it.”  she said with a shrug.  “I promise I won’t judge or bring it up... _much_.”

Abbie’s eyes flashed.

“I’m kidding!”

“How will I know if it’s worked?”  Abbie asked, seeking to get down to the nitty-gritty.

“Oh, you’ll know. You’ll feel it, you’ll see it.  --You’ll probably have to go a few times, just to be safe, so I’ll give you both an hour or two.”

Safee spoke up.  “He’ll get...ahh, more amorous than your average guy, okay?  You’ll know when he’s through fucking you.”

“Okay. That was blunt.” Abbie replied sardonically.

“Just remember the demon can’t truly harm you. For the time being it is definitely Ichabod in there. But generally those things go after the significant others that it’s host has a measure of attraction to.  It also feeds on the agony inflicted in dispatching this person, you see.   It may come forth to try twist Crane’s feelings to hurt you, but it _can not_ do you true harm as long as you’re marked.  Understand? …The extent of it is...um, vigorous sex.  Okay?”  

Abbie nodded, and took a deep breath.  Just what the fuck was she getting herself into?!

“Do not worry yourself, girl. Believe me. You won’t be doing anything that man doesn’t want you to do….Unless you stop, before it’s done.”  Safee said.  “You should feel pretty energized.”

“Yeah, actually I do.”  She also felt as ready for sex as she usually does when she’s ovulating.  That tea, she supposed.

“Good. Whenever you’re ready.”

Abbie took a few deep breaths and looked back at them one more time before opening the heavy wooden door of the interior of the lodge, stepping through and shutting it behind her.  

She scanned the large cozy room, lit with a multitude of flickering candles.  It was filled with the heady perfume of burning sage and some other sweet burning herbs.   She spotted Ichabod, apparently nude, except for a heavy patterned blanket, covering his body from the waist down.  He was sitting up with his wrists tied to the headboard of large wooden rustic four-poster bed.

_“Crane?”_

“Lieutenant.”

“How are you feeling?”

He closed his eyes briefly.  “ _Lecherous._  I have not been so afflicted with unmitigated desire for sexual congress since I was a boy on the cusp of manhood.  It is _embarrassing_.”

Abbie chuckled.  “Well, I suppose I should help with that.” she replied and began to untie the sash holding her robe together as she approached.

She watched his eyes track the movement, his eyelids heavy with lust. His lower half bucked a little and she could see that his arousal was already pretty evident.  His tongue darted out for the briefest of seconds.

“Abbie.   _-I am so sorry._   I would have this under much better circumstances.-”

“It’s not your fault.  There are much worse things we’ll have to do during our seven years. I’m sure of it.  The idea of getting laid in the process of helping you, isn’t totally unpleasant.”

“I’ll admit that I have considered the notion on a few occasions.”

She finished undoing the knot and his fingers twitched when her robe parted just a bit, revealing just the barest few inches down the center line of her form from clavicle to cunt.  His mouth dried.

He swallowed and stared.   “ _...more than a few, actually._ ” he whispered.

Abbie stood at the side of the bed. She couldn't help but smile under his desirous gaze.  She finished removing the robe, allowing it to drop from her body.

“ _Ah,_ the hummingbird!  It _is_ lovely.  I-”

He stopped rambling when she mounted the bed, sitting hip-to-hip with him.  She reached across his restricted form and touched just below the spot where he had been marked, in the join between his neck and shoulder, just below his jugular.  It wound down into his upper back.  The edge of it would just peek out if he continued to wear his shirts in his favored, open collar position.  This pleased her somehow.  A mark of their connection, their bond visible for all to see.  ...She scolded herself for that thought.  

He _wasn’t_ hers.

“Abbie, you’re very beautiful. Far beyond my imagining.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need your plying with pretty words.”  

Ichabod frowned at this, realizing that he had somehow struck a nerve without meaning to, -by complimenting her?

She sighed. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

She trailed her hand down his still bandaged chest, which jumped and twitched beneath her deft touch, and rested her palm against his heart. It thumped wildly.

She leaned in as if to kiss him, but stopped short.

“You abandoned me in purgatory.  You chose what you had, what you _were_ , every time you were given the chance to stand with me for humanity.  -To fulfill the role you drew me into with you. Never did you give me the slightest inclination that you cared for me beyond what I could do to help you and yours.”

“Abbie. How you could think it...I've told you _many times_.-”

“-Words, Ichabod.  Empty words, that always prove false.  I can’t pretend that I don’t care for you.  That I don’t-,”  

Abbie blinked away the heavy emotion that threatened to overtake her.

“ -but you’re not a safe man. Not because of all the shit that we have to deal with as Witnesses but because you have always chosen what’s best for you.  If it were to become more, this thing, that you’ve magically realized that you now want, given the choice between me and the world, what would you chose?”

He opened and closed his mouth.

“Thought so.  Unlike you, I can make the hard choices.”

Ichabod’s mind skipped back to that moment that she pulled the trigger, in the hospital.  How quickly the choice was made without even the slightest hesitation.  Had it not jammed...

“After this is done, so are we, -when it comes to this. Do you understand? It cannot go beyond this. You know that I have no trouble cutting off my feelings when necessary.”

Oh yes, he knew. She had endured all manner of emotional pain to get herself into that elite F-B-I, she spoke of, abandoned her sister for years while she toiled in denial of what they'd both witnessed, alone.

She watched his face go through a myriad of emotions, desperation, self-loathing, understanding.  He nodded once.  

“I do understand.”  

 _“Good.”_ and she leaned in and gave him the deepest of kisses, one that he felt all the way to the tips of his toes. She then increased the pressure, nipping his lip, drawing blood.

She sat back when he hissed in pain.

She then took her time dragging her hand from his heart and down his chest and stomach, taking him in hand.  She found him to be as long as the rest of him, though not nearly as thin.  He needed no further encouragement, that she could tell.  He strained and twitched in her hand, moaned into another rough kiss.

She stopped kissing him and set about preparing herself.  He watched with heated eyes.

“I’d like to help with that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Not necessary.  -Let’s just get this over with.”  

 

* * *

 

  
She lifted herself, straddled his body, took him in hand and guided him (- _home-_ ) inside herself.   She hummed at the feel of him filling her and cursed under her breath as her body betrayed her lack of detachment, gripping him greedily as took him deeply.

He gasped and his head fell backwards, carelessly thunking the headboard, his eyes narrow slits, as he watched her fully seat herself upon him. She dug her nails into his shoulder, causing him to wince and began to move.  She seemed intent on hurting him, while she took her own pleasure.

“...Ah- _Ah_ -bee.”

She gripped his chin, forcing him to look her in the eye.  

“You don’t get to say my name.”

She braced herself above him, leveraging her movements with her knees and lower back. She entangled a hand with one of his bound ones and set a brisk pace. The only sounds in the room were their hitching breaths. He gazed at her in lustful reverence.

She wrapped her other hand around his throat and _squeezed_.

He didn’t fight it, but seemed to surrender himself to it.  She rode him hard, pausing only to lick the spot of blood at the corner of his mouth.

He rolled his own hips beneath her and they fell into an easy rhythm as if they had been doing this for years.

He wanted to say so much to her, to tell her to not give up on them before they tried.  He wanted to tell her that he loved her, --so much that hurt, -that it scared him, that he loved what she was doing to him, but the words and feeling caught in his throat as she squeezed it harder.  He could very well die like this and he didn't care.

He didn’t want to interrupt this delicious feeling or _-jesus fuck!_ make her stop.  So, he occupied himself with the feel of her, with his increasing light-headedness, the sensation only heightening his awareness of the feeling of being inside her.  He occupied himself with memorizing the look of her in this state, with the poetry of her body, lost as she was...her eyes tightly shut as she tried her best to keep herself apart from her deeper feelings -from the intimacy of the act.

 _“shit!-”_  she gasped, whined, and rolled her hips above him with increasing speed.

 _“oh god”_  he rasped, and winced with the effort to hold off from coming before she could, but...It was. so, _sooo good_.

She felt him grow rigid beneath her, his legs stiffening and flexing.

“... _I’m-_ ” his voice was as thin as a thread and she felt him pulse, lifting his hips and her tiny body as he spent himself inside her.  She rolled her hips through her own crest and pressed her clit just enough to finish herself, squealing and quivering around his now softening length.

She collapsed against him trembling and panting, her sweaty face resting in the curve of his neck.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is became so much more angsty than I originally planned due to the direction of the actual show. It feels like two, maybe three different fics because of that. Still, it is smutty! I hope it satisfies.

Jenny stepped away from the peephole, dazedly shut the small hinged closure and locked it tight.

She walked into the adjacent room rubbing her eyes, where the exhausted group were absent-mindedly playing a game of snap.

“How are they doing in there?” Big Ash, asked, not glancing up at Jenny as he rearranged the cards in his hand.

“They are certainly busy -and I need brain bleach. I thought I’d be good, but I guess my first-world sensibilities are still intact.”

Safee chuckled. “I told you not to look in on them... Should have let me do it.”

Jenny scrunched her face. “Hell no. You’d’ve never left that peephole! The last thing my sister and Crane need is the knowledge that some perv was getting her rocks off watching them be, _-intimate_ with one another.”

Safee shrugged. “Might as well enjoy the beauty in life.”

“That’s not the word I’d use.” super-intense, raw maybe- she thought.

“Anyway, we should give them the night...They definitely aren’t out of the woods yet.”

 

* * *

 

The endorphins were just beginning wear off, and his chest ached terribly, but Crane would endure all matter of pain to continue to feel her body curved against his own, her small brown form a balm no modern medicine could equal.

He flexed his fingers uselessly. His wrists were still bound. He ached to embrace her, to cling to her, -to keep her where she lay.

He wanted to worship every hidden crevice on her body and find some way to repair her wounded soul. To shatter her being with pleasure and then patiently piece her together again.

He felt her stiffen, felt a hot dampness at his neck.

“Miss Mills?” her offered cautiously, his voice a whispered rasp.

“I’m fine.” she sat up and swiftly turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see the tracks down her face. _But of course, as purposely unobservant as he was about his own wife, he sees them,_ she thought.

“You’ve endured far more than most could. Would that I had never caused you this pain. I would have you experience nothing but the best that life could offer.-”

“-That’s not our destiny. Remember? You’re the one who dragged me the rest of the way into this... And I stupidly thought I had been drafted into some kind of righteous adventure.” she added with a dry chuckle.

“Silly me.”

“It’s just more of the same. I’m not a person, just a tool for bigger things, things more important than I am.” she took a deep breath, pushing it all aside as she always managed to and glanced over at the bedside table, which was stocked with all matter of sundries.

A container full of wipes and several bottles of water caught her eye.

She took a few wipes and indelicately cleaned their emissions from between her legs, as she perched on the edge of the bed, with her back to him. Something about the matter-a-factness of this act stung him.

_...As if she were a common doxy, business done. Clean (-him- them) all away._

“Thirsty, Crane?”

She picked up a bottle of water, cracked the cap and drank a few gulps down herself.

“Yes.”

She turned back and stared, daring him to say something about the red and puff of her eyes and lips. She leaned over him and gently untied his wrists which dropped limply at his sides, prickling with slowly returning feeling.

Seeing that he was unable to move them yet, Abbie tipped the water into his mouth herself.

“Better?”

He nodded.

After a few moments of silence, Crane spoke. His voice was still low and cracked but determined as he was, he made certain that he was understood.

“I have mastered the carriage of a man certain of his wants and needs, but as you well know, I can still be rather obtuse in those matters at times. -I make no excuses. I have failed to hold to my own convictions and I have failed you and possibly the world in the process. No words can undo this, nor what I do henceforth, though you must know that I am emphatically sorry for it. I sought to be true to my duty as husband first, heedless of my much greater duty as Witness, and the fact of my no-longer-binding marriage...

My priorities have been... _off_. I have been blind to the fact that my wife’s are as well. Equal partners on the same page, -as your modern values would have us to be -as this war _requires_ us to be, we are not.

I would not deign to ask your forgiveness, as I have asked that you risk your life so often in this...folly that is not even yours to bear, but I would beg for you to allow me my penance.

Allow me to set it right.

I would suffer proximity to the one thing I want -need most in the world, knowing that my pride and myopia have ensured that I would not have you in the way that I have desired since the moment that I first clapped eyes on you.- I wish-...”

He stopped talking when she flashed her eyes at him.

He swallowed dryly. “I yield to you, madam.”

Abbie chuffed. “Drink more water. We can’t be sure its gone yet. I was told it may take more than once. I’m going to rest while I can.”

She crawled up beside him and lay her head down, noticeably distant. The small space she had carved out between them may as well be a crevasse in a glacier.

Both the closeness and the distance were what she needed now.

 

* * *

 

Abbie had been watching him closely from her position at his side.

Crane had closed his eyes and, not exactly slept, but rested fitfully. He was semi-hard and glazed with perspiration.

Now he was stirring again…

His eyes snapped open and fixed on her.

"Lieutenant."

Abbie rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked him over. She placed the back of her hand against that expansive forehead of his and felt nothing but heat. He was feverish.

“Crane?... Are you still you?”

“Yes....” he whispered. “I just want you more than I do usually.”

There was nothing but the need to take. To devour, to consume, mixed thoroughly with his own love for her, his desire to please her.

“...I’m so sorry.”

He licked his lips and shut his eyes tight. She could tell he was struggling against whatever the thing within him was driving him to do.

“It’s okay, Crane. You can’t harm me. It’s just sex.”

“Abbie...” _It's not just sex for us._ He wanted to say.

Instead he pulled her close, his hand snaking between her legs fingering her, scissoring her clit, which was still very sensitive. She said nothing, but squirmed under his attentions, while he rained soft kisses across her clavicle, his tongue darting out to dip and swirl into the indent.

She felt herself flipped onto her back, his mouth crashing upon her own, his length hard and straining between her thighs.

“Crane, -whatever you need, okay? I was told it might take a few ga-goes.”

Crane sucked a tender spot on her neck, while his fingers worked magic between her legs. He wedged his own thigh between hers to part them further, so he had more room to work.

For now, he busied himself circling her clit, -circled and increased the pressure minutely, gauging her reaction.

He whispered into her ear. “ _I will not say your name, as you have deigned me unworthy. I too have determined the same, but if you would permit me, I would please you the best I know how, I would make love to you. I would wring from you every speck of sexual rapture that I capable of._ ”

Abbie swallowed.

“Do you wish for me to stop?” he rasped into her ear, with an edge in his voice, she’d never heard before.

“...Or do you want more?”

He increased the pressure and she bucked against his fingers.

“ _Tell me._ ” he hissed. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want -I want this feeling, Ichabod... _Don't stop_."

He penetrated her with those long agile fingers and peppered kisses across her breasts. He pumped his fingers a few times and then slowed the pace, curving them so they pressed against that tender place inside her, pulsing them so her body hummed under his attentions.

Her legs automatically spread wide and her hips arched up off the bed. He slipped down her body, parted her and sucked her cleft between his lips.

_“FUCK!”_

Everything narrowed down to the place between her legs, _the feel_...what he was doing to her. She reached out for something, anything to keep her anchored. His other hand caught her own and she squeezed.

“Ah! Crane! I’m-”

He curved his fingers and sucked at her tender flesh hard and she tipped over the edge, letting out an explosive gasp as she came, rocking her hips against his face...

Crane lifted his head as she came back down to earth, -his lips and beard slick and twitched his fingers, watching her body jerk with aftershocks.

He licked and sucked along her belly, her breasts, her neck, all while he aligned their bodies.

He met her eyes as he parted her yet again, enjoying the feel of her body taking him so easily. He set the pace, starting slowly, kissing her as one hand held her steady, gripping her hip while he moved, the ebb and roll of his hips like a wave’s crash and retreat, while his other hand gently stroked her cheek, -her lips to get her to look at him.

Once she did, his other hand dropped down to the curve of her thigh, hitching it above his hip.

He nuzzled her face. “ _Tell me, you won’t give us up….That you’ll try, because I can’t.- I can’t let you go. I can’t lose you. I need you. I love you so much. I tried not to. Tried because I knew...but oh God...I can’t not. More than anything, I love you, Abbie. You know that I am a selfish man! Stay with me...Stay with me...Stay with me._ ”

He rolled his hips just right and her eyes fell closed, her body trembled in his arms, her hands balled-up into fists at her sides. Oh, how she loathed him for loving him.

“-can’t trust you.” she managed to whisper.

He tried to kiss her mouth to stop her words, but she avoided it.

“...you or your other mission.”

He stilled his movements and looked at her seriously.

“Perhaps, I’ve decided to stop pursuing the other mission.” he said.

“Don’t fuck around Crane, either you have or you haven’t...There is no convincing ‘perhaps’.”

“I’ve thought quite a lot about it, even before this. I’ve thought about all that I’ve done to hold on and how little has been reciprocated. -Nothing really. When there’s a team, no one individual can do all the work.”

“-You don’t say.”

“Of course, I deserve that. I have been the worst sort of cad, a foolish one who took for granted what he had and I apologize. You’re so much better than my terrible choices.”

“You sure that’s not the sex talking?”

“Yes. And I don’t blame you for not believing me… I haven’t given you much cause to, but -after this is done. I’ll show you. You are all that I want, all that I need.”

She sighed. He still didn’t get it. She didn’t want to be the new girl-of-glass, that he worshipped in the tower. The girl he set above himself as some delicate thing that always needed shielding and protecting from the task they were both bound to. She wanted to be his partner, his lover, his equal in all things. If one or the other had to die, then so be it, if they both had to, then so be it. As long as the mission was completed, and humanity got another chance.

“You can start right fucking now. Just in case this is yet another round of unfulfilled platitudes, I can at least get another orgasm out of it.”

“oh yes...you certainly will.” he said and re-positioned himself, flipping her so she lay on the bed on her side, with Crane behind her, and he thrust himself inside her once more, grinding against her.

“Pleasure, dear heart, not but your pleasure, death upon death.” he husked against her ear sucking the tender lobe into his mouth.

She whimpered as her thighs parted further, the uppermost leg resting atop his own. His fingers slipped through her slick folds as he fucked her.

He filled her up despite what she saw as the emptiness of his promises, his body a poetry even his words could not rival.

“ _Being inside you is heaven..._ ” he sighed.

Crane caught and held her sidelong gaze, looked into those melting eyes, as he continued to pour himself into her, every piece, speck, of his soul he willed into her.

He gave himself over to her completely.

“I can’t.” she husked, even as her body eagerly took him inside, fluttering and spasming as he slide against those places that made her body hum, sing, and scream.

“Pleeaaasse...let me in.” he rasped as his pace increased in depth and speed.

“ah, AH!” she cried out and he kissed her, pulling back briefly to take in her expressions as her ecstasy mounted.

He held her chin in his hand and angled her face to kiss her more deeply, the gentle devouring dance a contrast to the increasing cadence of their bodies rhythmic coupling. He bowed his body to hit even sweeter places.

“Ah, yes my light, my love..”

Her voice was the thinnest thread. “ _ohhh….fuuuck._ ”

“Say it. I need to hear it to remember... _Please, say it_!” he hissed.

“-love you….I love you Ichabod.”

Abbie and Ichabod both squeezed their eyes tightly shut as the feeling overwhelmed them and he heard her squeak and gasp as la petite morte gripped her body and his.

His mind whited out as his end hit him abruptly and hard. He spilled seemingly endless amounts himself deeply within, as his body tensed and shuddered, and he felt  
it’s presence for the first time since the being chained up.

It _eclipsed_ , actually snuffed out within him...the sublime pleasure of their joining like setting fire to a stubborn weed from the root.

“My Abbie.” he whispered and kissed her hair.

He withdrew his length from her body, but remained curled around her, is lanky body spooned around hers. He simply held her tight, and breathed slowly, exhaustion unlike any he had felt coming down on him hard.

He splayed his long fingers along her figure, stroking, massaging, memorizing the shape of her under them, the feel and sound of her heartbeat.

_...never._

I won’t give you up.

 

* * *

 

The next day they awoke well after breakfast but before lunch…

There was a bag of breakfast pastries next to a note by the door.

 

**You’ve defeated it, and thoroughly-so judging from the totality of your sleep. Privacy seemed in order. Have your meal and get cleaned up. Our little pow-wow is now done. The door is open.**

**-Seamus**

**P.S.**

**Safee says ‘Often love isn’t always enough, but you both have more than that already. You have the God‘s Witness bond, come what may’.**

 

They ate in silence until Abbie spoke. She pressed her hand against her mark, and then palmed Crane’s, her furrowed brow deeply contemplative.

She looked into his eyes and sighed deeply.

“Fix it and then, ...we’ll see.”

Uncharacteristically silent, Crane closed his eyes in some unspoken prayer and nodded once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
